HyFlex Pedagogy and Activities

Making remote students feel included and engaged alongside your in-person students would be challenging without preparation and planning. Consider some of the following tips and activities for making remote students feel like they belong as much as the in-person students, and visa-versa.

Recruit help from a student volunteer

Keeping track of and engaging with questions or comments from remote learners can be challenging for one person to do while also working with face-to-face students. Consider asking a student volunteer to monitor the chat and non-verbal communication channels that your remote learners may use to ask questions or provide feedback. That person can then raise their hand in-person or interject on behalf of the remote learners. Make sure remote learners know who will be doing this so they can reach out if their question goes unanswered. Assistants can also help in sharing recorded lectures, assignments, writings, and other files with the class.

ADMINISTERING ASSESSMENTS IN HYFLEX CLASSES

The assessments that you might be using in face-to-face classes may need to be adjusted for HyFlex classes. Here are some suggestions for how you might measure students’ progress towards your course’s learning objectives:

Assessment strategy

• Frequent low-stakes assessments: Incorporating frequent low-stakes assessments in your class might allow you to track students’ understanding better than having fewer high-stakes exams. Frequent checks on understanding are especially important in a HyFlex class because remote students may not feel as if they have as many opportunities to ask questions, and the lack of body language makes it harder to intuitively gauge their understanding of a topic.
• Authentic assessments as alternatives to exams: Authentic assessments are assignments that require students to answer essential questions in their subject area and use those concepts as professionals in the field would. Examples include having future teachers develop lesson plans, asking statistics students to analyze real-world datasets and draw conclusions, or STEM students writing research papers or lab reports. The goal of authentic assessments is for students to develop meaningful and applicable skills and to emphasize the knowledge of the “how” as well as the “what.”

Assessment delivery

• Canvas quizzing: In-person paper quizzes may need to be replaced in part or entirely with quizzes administered in Canvas. As an analogue to having multiple versions of a quiz, consider building Canvas quizzes with question banks so that students are not presented with the same questions. Be aware that a paper version of the quiz may need to be provided for in-person students while online sections take the quiz in Canvas.
• Simultaneous open-book exams: Open-book exams can reduce the pressure that comes with timed exams as well as provide flexibility for technical challenges that often occur in timed and remote settings. Creating open-book or open-resource assessments can be less time-consuming to develop. Because students will have access to all of the materials you have provided, these tests may be created to be more rigorous than a traditional exam and allow students to explore ideas in addition to or instead of simply recalling facts.
• Remote proctoring services: Online proctoring allows students in online sections to take assessments at a remote location while maintaining the academic integrity of the exam. These services require students to confirm their identity before testing, and during the exam the service will monitor students through video to ensure that the testing is secure and the integrity of the assessment is maintained.

ACCESSIBILITY

The goal of a HyFlex class is to provide successful learning opportunities for all students no matter where they are or which learning mode (face-to-face, online synchronous, or online asynchronous) they are enrolled in or you have provided.

• Participation: Students may need assistance with opportunities for meaningful participation in their section or mode. For example, a remote student with poor internet access may not receive a video feed that is of sufficient quality to read what you write on the whiteboard, and instead you may choose to write on the annotation monitor so that students can see your presentation and have the chance to ask meaningful questions. In addition, you may choose to make your lecture notes available to students after class. Add additional “breakpoints” or “check-ins” compared to a typical lecture to provide clear opportunities for remote students to participate and ask questions.
• Course materials and activities: All course materials, communications, and activities must be accessible to and usable for all students. For example, audio or video recordings should include text transcripts or be closed-captioned, web pages and learning management systems must be compatible with screen readers, and online learning tools must be navigable with a keypad alone. Think about potential barriers students may face when participating in activities and have plans for how to modify them as needed. It is essential for instructors with an online component to their course become familiar with basic digital accessibility practices. Consider signing up for a self-paced training on accessibility fundamentals.
• Accommodations: Some students may require accommodations to tests or other aspects of their learning experience because of a documented disability.

If you have any students who require accommodations in your class, you are encouraged to work with the JCCC Access Services and discuss their accommodations with each student to ensure that everyone has equitable access to your course.

Content from this page is credited to the University of Florida Center for Instructional Technology and Training https://citt.ufl.edu/resources/teaching-in-a-classroom-with-hyflex/hyflex-class-checklist/